Imperfect Creature
by tjadis
Summary: Nine people.  Nine encounters.  Nine different ways of looking at a Grey Warden.  Old Roads continuity; a bit AU.
1. one: the witch

**Imperfect Creature; **

**or, Nine Ways of Looking at a Warden**

* * *

_one: the witch_

She watches the woman Warden, and wonders.

They do not like each other. There is a measure of grudging respect, and their skills are complementary. But Kathil Amell (and her mother knew another Amell, once upon a time, but that is neither here nor there, is it?) is a Circle mage to the bone, raised to know nothing more than cold stone and colder obedience.

Morrigan is an apostate, and she frightens the little Warden.

Well does she know it, and well does she use it. She is too useful to dismiss and too powerful to safely leave behind, and so they bring her with them. Denerim, Haven, Orzammar; all of these places Morrigan goes, crow-black and crow-avid.

The moment approaches, though it is not here quite yet. Flemeth whispered into her ear and said, _go_. And she wonders if Amell suspects.

Surely she knows _something_. Because she is here in Morrigan's room in Eamon's estate, and she is wearing a path in the carpet. Morrigan has been ignoring her.

"She looks at me like she thinks I might make a nice pet." Amell's voice is murderous, and low. "I did not think—after all these months of traveling with _you_, you'd think I'd be used to it by now." She does not face Morrigan. Instead, she is staring into the fire.

"And why do you care? You plan to betray her anyway." This has not been discussed, but Amell's only reaction is to tighten her lips. She is long used to Morrigan's ability to pick out meaning from the smallest of cues.

Little does she suspect the circumstances that necessitated the development of that discipline. If Morrigan has her way, she never will.

"I expected better of her." A pause; a soft exhale. "I don't know why."

_Because the Queen is beautiful, and she is alone, and somewhere deep inside that cracked and craven little heart of yours there is a woman who wants badly to ride to the rescue._

But Morrigan says nothing. Let her stew. Let her wind herself up in emotion; it will make what comes, what must come, easier. Morrigan will keep her clarity, even when all around her are floundering in the tidal floods of grief.

Kathil turns to her. Her chin lifts; she breathes in. "Do you ever worry about what happens, after the Archdemon?"

_Yes._

"Why would I? 'Tis not my concern, this country of yours. All things bleed, and all things die." Morrigan closes the book that she has been pretending to read. "Though I am not sure why _you_ care. You've seen the opinion most of the people you meet hold of you."

The crackle and pop of the fire fills the silence of the room. Amell's face twists. "Some day, Morrigan, I hope you learn what it means to love something that is incapable of loving you back."

Then she is gone, walking out of the room and away.

_Ah, but I do know, my Warden._

All her life, nothing she has ever loved has returned her regard. The creatures of the forest fled; Flemeth regarded her as a tool, nothing more. And Amell—

_I will save your life, little Warden. And you will never thank me, or forgive me._

Morrigan refills her cup of water from the flask and opens her book once more.


	2. two: the Sten

_two: the Sten_

* * *

It is difficult, to be in a strange land.

This is a true thing. But his perception of it has shifted, and he does not know if what he sees is closer to the truth or farther from it. There are no Ben-Hassrath here to ask.

Take, for instance, the Amell.

She is a woman. She is a _saarebas_. She is a warrior.

Two of these three things cannot be true.

He thought at first that she might be like the Tamrassan, the administrators and judges of the young. But she shows no aptitude for dealing with children, and her decisions are questionable at best. If she were clumsy with her blade, if armor weighed heavily on her shoulders, he would consider her a misguided _saarebas_ and recommend that her tongue be cut out, just to be sure.

But the Amell is good with the blade, and her heart beats with a warrior's rage. So it follows that she cannot be either _saarebas_ or woman, but he has seen her cast spells, and though she is small and sickly-thin, she is in fact female.

He meditates upon the Qun, which has no insight other than _those who live in blindness may break themselves upon necessity._

"Tell me more about how children are raised among your people," the Amell says to him one night.

So he does, judging that it falls under the Qun's command to speak the truth when truth must be spoken, even to those who do not follow. He tells her of the Tamrassan, of the constant tests, the education that all are given. All are equal, in the Qun; all have their places, their roles.

The Amell is caring for her mageblade, called Spellweaver. She works at a nick in the edge with a sharpening stone. "In a way, it is like the Tower," she says. "When we show the talent, they remove us from our families and bind our memories of them. Then we are taught obedience, and discipline."

The Sten considers this information gravely. "This is not how it is usually done, here."

"No. It's not." She uses a soft cloth to rub away small spots of dried filth from her blade. The weapon flares and quiets. "It's simply what they do to mages, here. Probably better than cutting out their tongues."

He lifts an eyebrow. "Better for who?"

She looks down at her blade. "A fair question." But she does not answer it. Instead, she raises her blade, and scrutinizes the metal in the flickering light of their campfire. Then she asks, "Does the Qun encompass roles for all thinking beings, or just qunari?"

"All." The response is automatic. "There are no omissions in the Qun."

"And yet it was written for your people." She applies whetstone to metal once more. He watches her, and aches for Asala, his missing soul. "Does the Qun speak about Grey Wardens?"

He has to think about that question for a time. "Not directly."

"I wonder if there have ever been qunari Wardens." She is apparently speaking to her blade, not him. "You are correct. There is no order among humans. We all long to be something we are not. And sometimes, we are made into things we should not be."

She rises then, nods to him, and departs for her tent. Along the way, she stops and speaks briefly to the other Warden. He follows her; doubtless they will mate for a time, as is their habit.

The Sten is left to tend his own blade, a poor substitute for Asala. He considers the Amell, as he considers all of those he travels with.

_We are made into things we should not be._

She understands, as much as an unenlightened human can understand. And perhaps she is a bent sword, a hammer of glass, forced into a shape she is not suited to. That, he can understand.

These humans have a word in their tongue, _content_. As he understands it, it carries a meaning that combines the qunari terms for _well-led_ and _properly placed_.

As much as he can be with his soul missing, he is _content_.


	3. three: the King

_three: the King_

* * *

The mage recruit is next to Duncan when the Warden-Commander walks into Ostagar, a pale thing with a sunburned nose and strikingly dark eyes. She looks a little familiar, but Cailan is more concerned with the coming battle than with wondering whose by-blow this might be. He flirts with her reflexively. Women like to be flirted with; it invariably puts them in good moods. (Except Cauthrien, but does Cauthrien _really_ qualify as a woman?)

He notices her scowl, but doesn't think anything of it.

Later, the mage is a silent, uncomfortable witness (along with Cailan's half-brother, who looks as though he'd much prefer to be anywhere else) to the latest installment of the interminable argument between himself and Loghain. Cailan wins. He always wins. He is the king, and the general can argue but he will never disobey.

The mage trails in Alistair's wake as he leaves the meeting. Alistair will be safely out of harm's way, Cailan notes rather absently as the talk turns to tactics. Not that his bastard brother appreciates it. He never has.

Cailan forgets about the girl entirely, and never thinks of her again.


	4. four: the Knight Commander

_four: the Knight Commander_

* * *

He sees them all dragged into the cold bosom of the Tower by Templars, child after child, the occasional sullen adolescent. They blur together in his mind. At first, he tried to remember each of their faces, but after he truly began to appreciate the lonely magnitude of his task, he left the remembering to his mage counterpart and concentrated on identifying those who were most likely to be trouble.

Such as Kathil Amell, who arrives soaking wet from a dunking in Lake Calenhad, her nearly-colorless hair plastered to her scalp. False roses bloom in her cheeks, bitten red by cold. She doesn't look like much, but Greagoir has been fooled before by mages.

She squirms out of Hesiah's grasp and runs away the moment they bring her into the entrance hall. They set the apprentices to searching for her; one of them finds her at the back of a wardrobe. She's brought back, sniffling, still-damp clothes clinging to her bony frame. She can't be more than five years old, and already she's caused several hours of trouble. Clearly, she will need to be watched carefully.

The dark-haired boy hands her over to the First Enchanter. Greagoir stands still, one hand on the hilt of his sword, watching. "Are you the Arl?" the child mage asks Irving, her voice blurred with the accent of northern Ferelden, touched with Orlesian influence. She wipes her nose on her sleeve.

"We have no Arl," Irving says. "Come now, little one. Close your eyes."

The girl bites her lip, then glances at Greagoir as if trying to decide if she should appeal to him for help. "I want my Papa." She backs off a step, then another, coming closer to Greagoir. Then she sprints towards him, fetching up against his knees, gripping his Templar robes in her thin fingers.

It is the instinct of a child raised by a soldier, to see a man wearing armor and bearing a sword as safer than the strange man in the stranger clothing. Greagoir drops to one knee and takes her shoulders in his mailed hands. "Be brave," he tells her, gravely. "The First Enchanter will not harm you."

She doesn't fight him; only looks at his face, searching for something. There is no fear in her expression.

It has been a long time since a child looked at him without fear.

Then she nods, and swallows. Greagoir says, quietly, "Close your eyes." She obeys. Irving is behind her, and the spell is swiftly spoken.

When she opens her eyes again, there is no recognition in her gaze. Her eyes have gone dull, and her shoulders slump in his hands. The first few days are like that; the apprentices take some time to adjust. She does not resist when Irving leads her away.

That moment stays with him, even if the girl doesn't remember it. It is not that he doubts. How could he? It is just that he wonders, sometimes, if those spells of Irving's snuff out something else besides memories. It is easier to wonder about that than about any number of other things buried away under accreted layers of piety.

_Be brave, _he remembers telling her. _Be brave._

That she is trouble in later years comes as no surprise.

None at all.


	5. five: the madam

_five: the madam_

* * *

She comes into the Pearl sometimes for a drink. No more or less notable than much of their other distinguished clientele, except for the fact that she always has her dog with her, the great hulking thing that pads in her footsteps like an over-muscled shadow. But Sanga keeps an eye on her anyway; it is her job, after all.

The Warden only rarely partakes of the men and women of the Pearl; usually the women. Most of Sanga's brood are afraid of the Warden-mage, but there are a few who are not, and it is to them that the Warden returns. As the months go by, as winter turns to spring and summer, her visits grow less frequent. At one point, Sanga does not see her for two months running; there is a rumor that the Wardens are in Orzammar, trying to garner support amongst the dwarves.

(There is also a rumor that the Wardens have left for Orlais; that the Wardens travel with a Crow assassin; that the Wardens are both werewolves. This last seems almost to comfort the people who repeat it.)

When she shows up once more, she is silent as usual, ostensibly alone except for her dog. There is an elf with tattoos on his face who shadows her. He seems to be watching over her, so Sanga lets him be. He stays carefully out of the Warden's sight.

She is thin as a wraith, and Sanga can see clearly the bones in her hands when she wraps her fingers around her cup. But she is not _fragile_. Not in the slightest. It is as if everything unnecessary has been systematically stripped away from her, leaving her honed as a blade.

The frightened rumors that have been blowing through Denerim like a knifing wind would paint this woman a monster almost more frightening than the darkspawn. And perhaps they are right; but Sanga has observed many men and women in her day, and the Pearl has seen monsters in its time. The Black Rose drank here once, after all, and left four of the Pearl's workers dead before he vanished. The Warden-mage is a killer, perhaps a murderer, but no demon.

Not yet.

She drinks watered wine, but does not ask Sanga for the comfort of the Pearl's back rooms. She stays late, and then she leaves. The elf departs as well, nodding to Sanga on his way.

The next day, even the Pearl hears of the Landsmeet, and the bells of the Chantry ring out in a pattern that Sanga has cause to wish was not so familiar: _there is a new King of Ferelden._

That night, the Warden-mage visits the Pearl once more.

In her time, Sanga has seen a vast range of pain; after all, it is the promise of distraction from pain that is the Pearl's greatest attraction. The Warden has broken her heart, Sanga would stake her life on it. Yet, she does not drink any more than usual. Instead, she grips her cup and stares into it as if it might hold answers. The elf who shadows her sits in a dark corner, and watches without watching. The Warden's dog rests its head on her leg, working ears and eyebrows as if trying to find a combination that would make his human feel better.

She sits like that far into the night. Finally, as the last clients of the evening are either escorted out or into the back, Sanga approaches her. "Can we do anything for you, sweetheart?" she asks.

"Probably not." The Warden does not move, even to look up at Sanga. "It's closing time, isn't it? I should go."

"Perhaps." Sanga waves away Ovrit, who is hovering nearby wondering if he's going to need to help kick out this small woman, and pulls up a chair across from the Warden. "You seem to have some things on your mind."

She makes a noncommittal noise. "You'd think I wouldn't even notice, what with the darkspawn heading north, about to ride to war. With everything else going on, seems like having someone I love tell me he's leaving me because I'm a mage would seem minor. And you'd think I would have _expected_ it. I know better than to stick my hand in the fire and not expect to get burned. And I did make him King rather against his will." She takes a deep breath. "I just needed a night to think about it, before I tried to be his friend again."

Ah. The rumors about the two Wardens were true, then; given that Sanga had observed the Warden-mage's sexual proclivities, she'd had her doubts. "We are closing down the public room, but if you wanted to stay, I'm sure we could come to an arrangement."

The Warden raises the cup to her lips, and drains it to the dregs. "All of your girls are occupied, Sanga, and you'll forgive me if I'm not in the mood for men." Her eyes dart briefly towards the darkened corner where her tattooed shadow waits, just out of sight.

Sanga leans in, and puts her hand on the Warden's jaw, her thumb running over the woman's sharp chin. The other woman does not pull away, but neither does she move forward; in the lantern-lit common room, it is difficult to see if her pupils widen. "My girls may all be occupied, but I am not."

It has been a long time since Sanga has taken a client. She was once one of the girls who work places like the Pearl, girls and women who have no better prospects and nowhere else to go. When Sanga took over the Pearl, she swore to make it as good a place as she could manage.

She promised herself, as well, that she would take on only the clients she wanted to take. She has never been the prettiest whore in Denerim, or the best. But she has something else, something that brings men and women to her doorstep, asking if she will see them with hands a-tremble. Some think they love her. Others think that they come away from her bed confessed and shriven, made new once more.

Sanga has a fine ear for those who badly need what she gives. So she offers to this Warden, with a hand on her face and a questioning silence.

But the Warden draws back. There is a scent in the air like a snowy night, like a pail of frozen water; like distance. "Maybe another time, Sanga," she says, and her voice is rough as if with pain. Then she rises, and the dog lying next to her follows suit. "Stay safe." The words are clipped, as are her movements as she collects her sword and heads for the door.

The elf in the corner rises as the Warden reaches the small hallway that serves as the Pearl's entrance hall. He, too, stalks towards the door. "I will be sure that she gets back safely," he says to Sanga, his accent rendering the words as low music. "Though tonight only a fool would attack her, yes?"

She hears all that the elf does not say, that perhaps not all of the fools are out on the streets tonight, that perhaps there are good reasons for a Grey Warden to be watched over by a man who is almost certainly an assassin...but there are more bad ones, and some of them include those proverbial reasons of the heart that reason cannot compass.

He is gone, the door swinging closed behind him. "Bar the door, Ovrit," she says. "Take your post. I'll clean up in here." Her hired man nods, and goes. Sometimes, she and Ovrit and whoever is not occupied with a client will sit and have a drink after close.

Not tonight.

Sanga wipes the tables with a damp rag, sweeps the floor, checks the stores behind the bar. She snuffs most of the lanterns, turns those still lit low.

Then she sits at one of the tables, props her chin in one hand. Something is gnawing at her, some unreasonable worry. The darkspawn will not reach Denerim, they say. Still. She has plans for getting her people out and away; perhaps it is time to retire to warmer climes for a time.

She traces designs in the wood of the table with her finger as the lamps gutter low, and considers retreat.


	6. six: the scholar

_six: the scholar_

* * *

Dagna never forgets a face.

And in the Tower, where most of the Templars wear helms all the time, she never forgets a breastplate either. It became easier to identify each of the armored men when she figured out that they all had armor given to them that they were expected to take care of, and some of them were more diligent about it than others. She memorizes patterns of dents and scratches as easily as she commits faces to memory.

She's been in the Circle Tower for three months now, and most of the mages have just left for Denerim, a group of Templars following them grimly. They left behind a couple of full enchanters, a few apprentices, most of the Templars and Tranquil, and Dagna.

And the Circle Tower is (Dagna reluctantly admits to herself) sort of _terrible_.

Part of it is that there's still a lot of cleaning up to be done. The large library is mostly cleared, and the apprentice dormitories, but up on the floor that has the Senior Enchanter quarters lingers a smell that Dagna associates with the few times she snuck off to Dust Town by herself—a fetid smell of rotting flesh and sewage.

And part of it is that somehow the pain and sorrow of the attack on the Circle seems to have sunk into the stone of the Tower itself. There are keening cries when the wind blows that can't be fully explained by gaps in mortar. The Shaperate says that stone once cut and shaped is no longer a part of the living Stone, but Dagna is starting to doubt that. Perhaps all stone is part of the Stone.

Stone remembers, after all.

But even though Kinloch Hold is rather awful, it's also rather wonderful. The _books—_! Even the apprentice stacks are a revelation, though rather a lot of those books have been defaced (one by a mage who evidently likes _cats_, of all things). And now that the mages are gone, there's nobody left who cares enough about Dagna to stop her from venturing into the enchanter stacks. The Templar who always seems to be on duty there sees her, she knows, but he never says anything. There are rumors about what happened to _him—_

Never mind that.

She starts to explore beyond the libraries, to the Senior Enchanter floor. This floor is nearly empty, except for the few Tranquil who have tasks here that they cannot seem to stop doing. When Dagna manages to adjust to the stink, it's a good place to bring her notes. There hasn't been a comprehensive survey of the literature around the study of lyrium done, _ever_, and Dagna intends to do one—there is so _much_ here, and it's not organized or sorted in any way. One book refers to another, others mention mages long dead as sources to be consulted.

So she is busy, while the war rages.

"Which stack should I start looking for a book by someone named Guillarme?" she asks the Templar who is standing just below the staircase that leads to the Senior Enchanter floor. "It's called _In Defense of Griffon's Fall_, if that helps. Well, that's the translation, at least, it's in Orlesian."

The Templar doesn't respond for a moment. Then he says, "Why do you think I know?"

Dagna snorts. "You stand around a library all day. I'd think the books would _seep in_, if nothing else."

The Templar sighs, a hollow, echoey sort of sound in his helmet. "Up there, somewhere on the top two shelves. That's where most of the books in Orlesian are kept."

"See?" she crows. "I knew you'd know. Come on, hold the ladder for me."

It's funny, how so many people just do as they're told. The Templar follows her and steadies the ladder while she climbs up to pull down the book she's after. And the next day when she comes back and asks him where she can find a book called _Exalt and Overwhelm_, he helps her look for it.

In Denerim, the Archdemon dies.

The mages come back with stories of what happened at Fort Drakon, how they held the stairs leading into the fort from waves of shrieks and ogres and hurlocks and genlocks, and Dagna cannot help but think about how Orzammar stands against the darkspawn. The mages fought a battle, and won; the dwarves fight a war, and they are losing. Slowly, by inches, they are losing.

She knows then that someday soon, she will go home.

"Do you think she'll come back?" she asks the Templar who usually helps her in the library. His name is Cullen, and since the mages got back he has less time to help her look for books than he had. Still, sometimes he's there, and he's useful. Like right now, when she's handing down books to him from her perch on a ladder.

"Who?" he asks, taking a book from her hand and setting it atop three others on the table.

"The Grey Warden, the one who killed the Archdemon. She's a mage, you know! Do you know her? I met her in Orzammar, she's the one who arranged for me to study here." Dagna never forgets a face, especially not a face that managed to grant her the one thing she ever really wanted, her heart's desire. She can still see the mage's hollow cheeks, her dark eyes that stood out in her face like jet inlaid in limestone. "She was nice to me."

Cullen's laugh is more like a bark. Alarmed, she peers down at him. "Sorry. I've just never heard Kathil referred to as _nice_, before. Trouble, yes. But not nice."

"So you know her, then?" Dagna hands down the last book to the Templar and starts climbing down the ladder. The knees of her trousers are dusty.

"We aren't encouraged to get to know the mages," Cullen says. "I've seen her, but I don't know her." He has his helmet off, and his gaze is distant.

It occurs to Dagna that this is the first time that the Templar has ever lied to her. Something about him reminds her of her father, how he would grumble, _Like a nug that wants to fly and spends all its time trying to grow wings_ when she would talk about magic, about going to the Tower to study.

She grew her wings, and they carried her here, and one day soon they will carry her back to Orzammar. She wonders if this Templar is ever going to grow his.

But she drops the topic and finishes climbing down the ladder to the floor.

She's back in Orzammar before the snow flies again on the surface. It's there that she starts getting letters sent from the Grey Warden Kathil with no way to send a message back, no address, not even a hint of where the mage might be. Dagna does not know that she is the _only_ person to hear from the Warden for two years.

Dagna never forgets a face; not even one altered nearly beyond recognition.

Humans are still a rare sight in Orzammar. The one making her way unsteadily through the crowds in the Commons is the subject of no few stares, but she returns none of them. There is a deep scar down one side of her face, flushed an angry red, and she limps a little.

Dagna would know her anywhere.

She rushes off of the stoop where she has been visiting with her father, dodging through the crowds. "Warden! Warden? Kathil! It's me, Dagna! You're back, you came to visit! I did it, I went to the Tower and came back but I guess you knew that because you've been writing me here, and _wow_ it's been _years!_ Come on, then, you're going to stay with me, I have an extra bedroom. Well, it's mostly filled with books right now but we can move stuff around and I'm so glad to see you!"

The mage doesn't resist as Dagna leads her to her own little house in the Commons. There is _so much_ Dagna wants to tell her. But Kathil looks strange, almost as if she's not wholly here, as if she's left some part of her somewhere, and all she does when Dagna tries to talk to her is close her eyes.

Dagna beds the Warden down on a cot in the spare bedroom, surrounded by stacks of books. She stays there for four days, barely stirring enough to use the jakes and stumble back to bed. Dagna can't be home all the time, there is so much to be doing right now what with the apostates that have been showing up on Orzammar's doorstep and all of them being brought to Dagna because she's the only person who knows anything at all about mages. She checks in on the Warden often, but doesn't force her awake.

After four days, the Warden seems to come back to life a little, enough to have a conversation and eat some roasted nug that Dagna brings her. She shakes her head when Dagna asks if she wants to meet the mages who are living in Orzammar.

On the fifth day, she is gone; one of her father's friends mentions that he saw the scarred human heading towards the doors into the Deep Roads. Dagna can't help her disappointed scowl. Everyone knows why Grey Wardens go into the Deep Roads alone. _She's too young. She should have years still._

Then someone else says they saw her go into the shaperate, and then someone else still says they saw her in the Hall of Heroes. But Dagna doesn't know for certain whether the Warden's gone down to the deep one last time until she receives a letter from Kathil a few months later.

The letter doesn't mention her visit to Orzammar. In fact, she has picked up their correspondence exactly where she left off, except that at the end of the letter she mentions that she is living at the Tower for the moment.

Dagna sends letters to the Tower. Then to Denerim. Then, a winter passes with no word, and when Dagna hears from the Warden again, she is in Amaranthine.

It's about then that other rumors reach Dagna's ears. The human Chantry is not pleased with the fact that there are now thirty mages of various descriptions living and working in Orzammar. They are contemplating an Exalted March.

It's as if they expect to rattle their swords in Orzammar's direction and have the dwarves jump to their command. But the mages have been making themselves _useful_—the Deep Roads nearest Orzammar are nearly free of darkspawn now, and they're pushing towards reclaiming many of the thaigs. Dagna is still working on her comprehensive theories and natural history of lyrium, and she's discovered how to extend the amount of time that mages can spend in some of the lyrium-choked caverns in the deep before they become intoxicated.

Dagna has no fear that King Harrowmont will give over the mages. They—and she—are far too useful.

She thinks sometimes about the Warden, who blows in and out of her life like a surface storm, someone she has never gotten to know except by absence, by rumor. She wonders whatever happened to that Templar, if he ever went mad like people said he would.

Maybe some day she'll go up to the surface again, and see.


	7. seven: the father

_seven: the father_

* * *

When the Warden-mage tells Matthias that his daughter is dead, she spares no words, does not flinch.

In the world suddenly gone dull and grey, in an unjust world where his daughter, his bright, promising, _beautiful_ Amalia no longer breathes, he finds it easier if he can hate someone.

So he hates the mage who let her die.

It is easier than hating himself.


	8. eight: the general

_eight: the general_

_

* * *

_

He sees his own death in her eyes.

Loghain always thought of that as the sort of nonsense a poet would spout, but facing her here in the Chamber of the Landsmeet, he sees something still, dark, and patient in her gaze. It is a cold determination to get her way, no matter what stands between her and her goal. He used to have that, though his burned in his gut like fire.

He is old, and Maric is gone, and he finds that the fire in him has finally burned to ash.

She is guilt made flesh and bone as she grates out a list of his crimes—what he allowed, what he encouraged, and he feels little except a grinding sort of gratitude that she managed to kill Rendon Howe before she stepped foot in this chamber. If Rendon had survived, Anora would never be safe.

So it has come to this: Loghain with his back to the thrones; a Grey Warden facing him. Anora looking on, her hands clenched in the skirt of her dress. Ferelden's nobility surrounding them, waiting in silence to see who will prevail in a test of arms—a warrior who has trained every day for over forty years, or a young mage who is all bone, sinew, and determination.

He draws his blade, as does she.

The last remnants of the man Loghain once was crumble into dust, and are blown away on the wind from a crow's wings.


	9. nine: the immortal

_nine: the immortal_

* * *

It would be so easy to leave her here, and let her burn with the rest.

Flemeth hesitates. The talons of her free forehand scrape at the stone of the Tower of Ishal, eliciting a scream of protest from where gem-hard claw meets floor. She has the one who is arguably important, unconscious in the talons of her other forehand: the bastard prince, moth to the flame that Morrigan will become.

Still. There is something about the other Grey Warden. She reminds Flemeth of someone. She cranes her neck, brings her narrow head down and flares her nostrils as she breathes deeply the scent of the mage.

_Ah._

She will be useful, this one. The possibilities spin out in starbursts in Flemeth's skull, flashes and visions of the future and past all tangled together, clawing at her mind. She makes a low groan; the _kenning_ has never gotten easier to bear, and even in the shape of a dragon the age of her mortal form is weighing on her.

Still, the many voices of the _kenning_ are unanimous: that it would be a mercy to let this one die, but it is a mercy that Flemeth cannot afford.

_I could say that I am sorry for what I must do, little one, but I do so hate to lie._

She closes her talons around the mage—gently, gently! She is dying, a crossbow bolt through her lung, a large blood vessel bulging and ready to tear, a cracked skull with bleeding beneath it. She will take mending, it is sure, long mending; but she is young, and stronger than she looks.

And she has one other thing: that simple animal instinct for survival.

Flemeth spreads her wings, and they crack like sails as she crouches and takes to the air. Below her, the darkspawn pay her no attention and the humans are too busy dying to look up. But 'tis always that way, is it not? They are ever too busy dying to look up.

She flies back to her little hut with the two unconscious Wardens in her grip. The weave is coming together, and Flemeth's long-dormant plans are waking, one by one. There is death before her, and death behind her, and in between these two humans who will play all unwittingly in a game that is larger than either of them will ever suspect.

In the back of her mind, the voices of things that never lived laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

.

.

.

.

.

* * *

_Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms._

_C. S. Lewis_

* * *

_Author's Note:_

_And this completes "Imperfect Creature". Yes, I'm planning on doing at least one more of these, probably another nine-parter. (Why nine? I'm actually not sure, it's just the number that seems right.) Votes for who gets to speak up are gladly accepted! (Jowan and Irving are already on the list.)_

_Happy New Year, everyone!_


End file.
